Thanksgiving 2019

Time is flying! I cannot believe next week is Christmas already. With Thanksgiving so late in the year this year it feels like we are rushing through the holidays. I wanted to make sure and recap our Thanksgiving before jumping in to all the festive fun we've been doing over the past few weeks.

We held Thanksgiving at my parents house again this year, with each of the siblings contributing to the dinner. We had all of the classics but ended up missing out on rice dressing this year due to a little mishap in the kitchen. But, Thanksgiving continues on and it's a fun story to tell for the future! Long story short after whipping up a batch of rice dressing and trying to take it out to the garage, it dropped and shattered all over the garage floor. I'm sure the squirrels enjoyed the leftovers!

We started out our day with the Manito Turkey Trot. We had good intentions to try and do the entire 3 miles but with little ones it was difficult to finish so we cut out about half way through the walk/trot. My little brother and sister Amy and niece Ocean couldn't make dinner this year, but we still had a full crowd between my sister Sara and her family, my cousin Jake and the Alexanders. My dad also had to work late this year, so he missed out on round 1 of dinner but made it home in time for seconds!

It felt different this year with so many of us missing, but it was still fun, festive and nice to spend time with family.

Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving 2018 was another one for the books! It was Finn's first Thanksgiving and the first time the Alexander's hosted. We had a small gathering this year, just my parents, my sister, Amy and our little family of four, but it was quaint and cozy and full of good food.

I had prepped all week so the morning was laid back. We had picked up a gingerbread Turkey from Trader Joes for Lincoln to put together in the morning and then we made pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies to deliver to our local fire station. Lincoln was so excited to drop off cookies and they took him back to see the big trucks and flash the lights. We didn't snap any photos, but you can be sure fun was had by all!

After that we headed back to the house to put Finn down for a nap and prep the appetizers. My parents came over a little after 11 to start the festivities and we had appetizers and mimosas all morning and afternoon while watching football.

We are pros at eating for the holidays so of course appetizers ran all the way into dinner. We sat down around 4:30 for dinner and after stuffing ourselves completely, we settled in for our annual Christmas movie marathon. Finn thoroughly enjoyed his first Thanksgiving and got to participate in all of the tastiness as well!

Both Kevin and I have been home for a long weekend so I've included a few additional photos here as well, including our holiday Christmas box that helped us kick off the official Christmas season. This year's box included Charlie Brown's Christmas movie and The Jolly Postman book, along with our annual family Christmas jammies!

We decorated the house yesterday, but have yet to go chop down our tree since Thanksgiving is so early this year. We're headed up next Saturday to tree hunt!

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving! It's the most wonderful time of the year!

A Hat Island Thanksgiving

 Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and a very Happy Thanksgiving. We spent the past week out at our favorite place, Hat Island, and celebrated Thanksgiving, island style for the very first time!

Lincoln, my mom and I left Saturday and spent the evening in Everette before catching the ferry over on Sunday. Our drive was fairly smooth until the very end, when Lincoln ended up getting car sick all over himself and the car seat. It was awful. I felt so bad for the little guy. My mom and I do not handle puke very well, so while we gagged our way through cleaning up the mess, Lincoln huddled down in the front seat of the car until we could get him all fixed up.

On Sunday, we met up with my little brother, went to breakfast, ran some errands and did a final grocery run before hopping on the ferry that afternoon at 3PM. The wind was crazy and the boat ride was extremely rocky but we made it! And then we ran into our first mud slide. Ugh. My mom and I got Lincoln settled down with a movie and proceeded to make about 7 trips back and forth with all of suitcases, coolers, grocery and a 22 lb turkey.

While getting to the island can take a lot of work, once you're there, it's full on relaxation mode. We spent Monday and Tuesday cooking up a storm! I made Christmas Cookies, Peanut Butter Balls, French Onion Puff Pastry Puffs and helped my mom with the Kibbeh.

Wednesday brought the arrival of Kevin, my dad and my little brother! We headed out Wednesday morning to pick up Kevin and ran into ANOTHER MUDSLIDE. We weren't able to get around this one, so my mom called a friend to pick up Kevin and deliver him to us, and we did the same for my dad and Griffin later in the day.

Thursday was the big day and it ended up being the most relaxing and chaos free Thanksgiving yet! Lincoln and I made cinnamon rolls to start the day and we all lounged around, watched Christmas movies and hung out while the turkey roasted and the food cooked in the over. My mom had prepped so much of the food throughout the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving that there wasn't much for us to do until right before dinner time, when we made a salad, some mashed potatoes  and cooked the grape leaves as well as warmed the stuffing, rice dressing, meat pies, etc. Dinner was delicious (as always), the drinks were flowing (for those of us who aren't preggo) and we were all sufficiently stuffed. We ended the night with Christmas Cookies and Peanut Butter Balls and more holiday movies!

Friday was a lazy start, when Lincoln actually slept in till 8:30!! A holiday miracle in and of itself. We spent the day eating leftovers, lounging and cleaning up and packing before heading out on the 7 PM ferry that evening and making the long drive home.

It was a great first Hat Island Thanksgiving, mudslides and all! Now back to the work grind.

Thanksgiving Toddler Crafts

Happy Thanksgiving week! If you haven't caught on by now, I am a holiday junky...and I'm constantly on the lookout for lots of fun and festive crafts!

We are out at the island for our first #AHatIslandThanksgiving and I came fully stocked for turkey themed crafts because I knew the weather would likely have us spending a lot of time indoors. I wanted to pop in with two of the best Thanksgiving crafts I've found yet!

The first one is a repeat from last year. Trader Joe's has the most adorable gingerbread turkey's for your little one to decorate. If you have a three year old like mine, you'll spend more time convincing him not to lick the icing and eat the candy then you will actually decorating the turkey, but it's still a fun tradition that kept Lincoln entertained for a good 45 minutes. The end result turned out pretty cute too! And because it's the holidays, he'll be munching on that candy turkey for the next few days, until I can discreetly throw it away.

Next up is the big winner. I picked up this felt turkey craft from Target back in October and stashed it away for a rainy day. Once we figured out we'd be headed to the island for Thanksgiving, I decided to save it for a the trip. The recommended age is for kiddos 4 years and up, but with a little help, Lincoln was able to make this just fine. It comes complete with a plastic "needle" and yarn thread to sew the turkey together, stuffing for his belly (Lincoln took a time out to pretend he was Santa Clause), and cute little felt stickers for the turkey feathers, body and face. This craft lasted us a good hour and the end result was adorable. Lincoln loves his turkey and is currently napping with it.

The felt turkey was such a fun activity and only $5! I'm already planning on heading back to Target next weekend to see if I can find a Christmas version (maybe Santa or a reindeer!).

Hope this week is full of lots of festive fun!

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

I can't believe it, but we already have snow on the ground! Not even a week past Halloween, and we were blanketed with enough of the white stuff to build a snowman!

Now that Halloween is over, Lincoln is convinced that Christmas is happening any day now and the snow did not help in trying to convince him that Christmas is still a good 7 weeks away and we have to celebrate Thanksgiving first.

The snow started on Saturday morning and picked up all day on Sunday. We headed out bright and early (daylight savings, what's that?) to build our first snowman of the season. He was a bit lop sided, and we didn't have coal or a top hat, but we made due with leftover Count Chocula (spelling?) cereal and a sand bucket.  Our poor snowman only lasted a day though...by this morning he had melted into a sad little lump.

We've told Lincoln he'll have a good 4 months minimum to build a million snow men though so I think we're over the dying snowman over here.

In other weekend news, we've already started on our Thanksgiving prep over here! Lincoln learned how to make Lebanese meat pies this weekend with nana and cousin Jill!

Cheers to the very best time of the year!